MUMBAI: Delhi Legislative Assembly election has proved to be most fruitful for the news channels across genres. However, Hindi news broadcasters’ viewership has substantially grown by over 14 per cent in week six as compared to week five, according to the data published by Broadcast Audience Research Council of India (BARC).
One of the reasons behind the growth of viewership was the recently concluded Delhi elections. The polling was done on 8 February and the results of the same were declared on 11 February. Delhiites gave the mandate to Aam Aami Party, which garnered as many as 62 seats in 70-member Assembly.
TV Today Network’s Hindi news channel Aaj Tak has continued to be the leader with the first spot in the top five channels list in the genre. The channel’s viewership grew by around 25 per cent to 146178 weekly impressions in week six as compared to 117478 impressions in week 5 of BARC. The channel also continued to maintain its dominance in both rural and urban segment viewership.
Outperfoming all its peers, ABP News Network’s Hindi news channel ABP News has given a tough fight to all other four channels in the list, including Aaj Tak. The channel, grabbing the second position, has improved its viewership count substantially by 24 per cent to 108032 impressions in week six as against 87015 impressions in week five. The channel was at the fifth position in week five of BARC.
Retaining its position at number three, News18 India, a Hindi news channel of Network18, grew by around 7 per cent to 101566 impressions in week six as compared to 95139 impressions in week five. Similarly, India TV maintaining its stance at fourth position grew by over 12 per cent to 99324 weekly impressions in week six compared previous week to 88477 impressions in week five.
Meanwhile, the Zee Entertainment Enterprises’ Hindi news channel Zee News has fallen to the fifth position from second and has seen a marginal increase of viewership growth by 1 per cent to 98564 impressions in week six as compared to 97652 weekly impressions in week five of BARC.
Despite being the biggest financial event in the country – Budget 2020, the viewership of news channels across genre, except business news channels, had slowed down by 20 per cent in week 5 (1-7 February) as compared to the previous week, BARC data had mentioned on its website.
The rise in the viewership of channels growth in week six has pointed out that the audience is more inclined towards political developments than financial happenings in the country. The current data has reversed all negatives posted in week five as compared to the current week as per BARC.
